


Hidden in the Space Between

by smittenstar



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Communication, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smittenstar/pseuds/smittenstar
Summary: Eliot and Quentin are forced to confront their feelings and the lifetime they spent together.Side-quest set after “A Life in the Day”.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Hidden in the Space Between

“I think it’s this way,” Quentin called from far ahead. Eliot ran to catch up, rolling his eyes when Quentin began to speed up even more. 

“Slow down a bit, maybe?” Quentin responded by shaking his hand in a gesture that really could have meant anything. Eliot watched as Quentin took a sharp turn and fell out of his view. Eliot followed quickly, coming to an abrupt stop when he caught up to him. 

They stood side by side, looking directly down into the mouth of a cave. Quentin turned to look up at Eliot’s face. Quentin was entirely focused on the task ahead. His voice held the same unsure quality as it always did, but his face was another story.

Quentin took his first step down, onto a ragged bit of stone making a dodgy path into the cave system. He crouched down and used his grip on the stone to make his next step. Eliot straightened and tugged at his waistcoat, following his friend.

A few cautious steps later and Quentin peered over the ledge he was standing on. It was a bit of a drop but then they would be on even ground again. He tried sitting and then twisting his body to lower himself gently to the floor, but his hands couldn’t find purchase. He stayed sitting, legs over the edge, and looked back at Eliot for the first time since their descent began. His outline, his curly hair, lit by the afternoon sun they were leaving behind. Quentin's eyes focused again and he spoke, “it’s a bit of a drop. Take my hands and help lower me down.”

Eliot nodded minutely, almost as if cut off from his own actions. Softly, “okay.” Stepping up behind where Quentin was sat, he did as he was told. The coldness of his rings against Quentins hot hands. 

When he landed safely on the stone below, he turned to help Eliot keep his balance as he jumped down. Their eyes locked and a moment passed, as if kept frozen. Quentin cleared his throat and turned away. He wasn’t sure if he was simply imagining the tension between them, or if the silence of the cave was making it worse. 

24 hours before. Peaches and plums. The sting of disappointment. The doubt of his own perception due to Eliot's reaction. It all still whirled and thrummed just beneath Quentin’s skin.

“Q, I-”

“We should keep moving, get this done as soon as possible.” Quentin left no space for a response. Quentin took his rucksack off his shoulders and lifted out the torches he had taken for them. He handed one off to Eliot and off they went, further down into the depths of the dark. It didn’t help that they didn’t know what it was that they were looking for. Their only hint had been that a group of magicians, a sort of magical troupe, had hidden something valuable in the cave system near the burnt river.

As they descended deeper through twisting tunnels and narrow gaps, Quentin thought of Fillory. Fillory and the lifetime he had- hadn’t lived with the man following behind him. His son, whose newborn smell he could still conjure in his mind. His son who also didn’t exist, who ever existed. He remembered how it felt, how it tasted, to kiss Eliot after he’d bitten into a peach. The sweetness of it.

The whole thing made his head ache. 

After many narrow passageways, they entered into a large cavern. Quentin shone his flashlight along the rough surface of the walls, scoping out the size and any indicators of the mystery they were looking for. Eliot was suspiciously quiet and still. Quentin turned to look at him. Eliot was staring into the distance, adrift in his mind. Some kind of emotion marring his features.

Quentin furrowed his brow, “what is it?”

Eliot refocused his gaze onto Quentin. “Can’t you smell that?” 

Their flashlights started flickering, and a rushing sound like that of blood in your ears filled the space. Either Fillory was trying to fuck with them, or they’d stumbled upon more than they’d bargained for. They both looked around wildly, expecting something to crawl out of the dark. They only saw one another in brief flashes of yellow light. 

The rushing got louder, overwhelming Quentin’s senses with nothing but the deep tone. Then it went dark. There was a moment, a split second, where it got too quiet again, Quentin was about to speak up when-

A lush forest surrounded them. “What the hell is going on?” Quentin let out in a rush of breath. “Where are we?” From the thrum of pulsing magic in the air, they were still in Fillory.

Eliot still looked off-balance. He shook it off, “I have no idea.” He looked around and spotted something. “The trees thin out over there, let’s go.” 

“Wha…,” Quentin trailed off. They both stood there in shock, not believing what was before their eyes. The sweet smell of summer surrounded them. The mosaic looked just as it had the first time they’d seen it. 

Eliot rushed toward the house. The building that had, in another timeline, been their home. For a moment he feared they were trapped again, gone back in time and forced to relive the whole thing. Quentin stood rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do with himself.  
Eliot looked around the inside, it didn’t look too different from what he remembered but it lacked the personal touches they’d given their home. Their son’s toys and-

Coming back outside, he took a deep breath. He sat down on the mosaic and tried not to think of the beginning. Days and nights spent sat exactly here. “There’s no one else around, I checked,” Eliot said. It seemed to snap Quentin out of his reverie and he went to sit down next to Eliot. “It.. It looks just how it did when we first got here. Just without that frustrated old guy.”

Quentin looked at Eliot and spoke up, “why are we here? I mean, we’re done with this place. We solved it. We got the key.”

“Do you think we’re stuck here?” Eliot sounded something akin to afraid. “Like we were before?”

Quentin shook his head, he wasn’t sure why but it couldn’t be. This couldn’t be happening again. “We finished the quest, it has to be something else.”

Eliot took a mosaic piece in his hand and looked around at his surroundings. “I never thought we’d be here again.” Quentin focused his gaze down on his hands. Softer now, quieter, Eliot confessed, “I’ve missed this place.” Quentin’s eyes quickly found Eliot’s, he tried to read between the lines, he wanted to ask what Eliot meant by it, but he wouldn’t dare. Eliot had made it clear, they wouldn’t work. Not when they have a choice.

“I wish I could see Teddy again, even just one more time.” Quentin looked heartbroken as he said it. “I know we were different then- or there- whatever, but I wish… I don’t know,” he shook his head, confused by his own feelings, “sometimes I wish he was real.”

“Q…” Eliot’s hand twitched where it was resting on the ground.

“He still feels real. I know he was. But to know that he’s not anywhere…” Quentin ran a hand through his hair and left it there, gripping the back of his own head. 

Eliot put his hand on his shoulder, his wet eyes shining. Quentin relaxed his body and only when Quentin’s drifted back to him did Eliot speak, “I miss him too.” A tear spilled down Quentins cheek and Eliot pulled him tight into his arms. Eliot closed his eyes, feeling at home again.

They pulled apart, Eliot took Quentin’s face in between his hands. He smiled and said, “we’ll be okay.” Quentin looked away, remembering that this is not that life. Him and Eliot… it’s not… not as it was. It won’t be like that. Eliot’s hands fell away.

“It’ll never go away, Eliot. I won’t ever be able to forget it. We lived an entire lifetime together,” he said it, looking off into the woods they had been transported to. Remembering their life, and being so close to it now, filled him with emotion. He turned back to Eliot with purpose, passion flowing through his features,

“I spent an entire lifetime loving you.”

Eliot doesn’t know what to say or how to react. Quentin goes on, “An entire lifetime. You can’t tell me… you can’t tell me that was nothing to you. That it wouldn’t work now.”

“Real life is so much messier and so much more ugly, Q.”

Quentin became more animated, his voice filled with desperation, “we owe it to ourselves to try.”

“When you died, and I buried you-,” his voice became raw, “I buried you El, and before I solved the mosaic, I remember feeling so grateful to have lived a life with you. Even if we didn’t get the key, even if we failed the quest, it wasn’t wasted time. The whole thing wasn’t for nothing. Because I got to spend my life with you.”

Their surroundings flickered, and suddenly, they were back in the cavern. Quentin hardly noticed the change. He took a step towards him and used his last ounce of bravery to say, ”I love you, Eliot Waugh.”

Eliot closed the space between them, lifting his hand to Quentins cheek and brought their lips together. When they parted, a small smile graced his lips.

“And I you, Quentin Coldwater.”

**Author's Note:**

> “To walk inside the void  
>  Like a kid inside a cave
> 
> Discovering the patterns of my soul  
>  And where it’s placed
> 
> I’ve been mapping many caverns but  
>  it still feels like a maze.”


End file.
